conservation has almost always been based on personal desires.

while i agree that closing large portions of 4B is a bad idea, it's not because i trust wdfw science. it's based on a personal desire to continue fishing with the hope that reduced bag limits can hopefully improve populations that wdfw states are declining (like blue rockfish, which can currently be kept) and to increase the populations of more abundant stocks as well.

fish management, especially wdfw, rarely pushes conservative regulations until they are necessary. if it weren't for personal desires, the hoh would probably still be at a 30 fish yearly wild fish kill while still missing escapement most years but shut down to sport fishing.

some fishermen's personal desire is to maximize harvest, and while i disagree that is no different than my personal desire for reduced harvest to hopefully increase abundance while still allowing fisheries... or the personal desires of divers to dive over unmolested populations of fish. we have differences but they are all based on personal desires.

we are also dealing with a common thing in fish management, the shifting baseline. we are not attemting to bring populations back to the numbers 50-100 years ago... but using current populations (or within the last 5-10 years) as a new baseline. ask the guys who fished neah bay in the 50's, 60's and 70's if the rockfish population in the area is diminished.